Lawyers for Alex Murdaugh accuse prosecutors of hiding evidence and leaking information to press 

Lawyers for Alex Murdaugh have accused prosecutors of hiding evidence – together with blood splatters and cellphone data – and leaking information concerning the South Carolina household murders to the press forward of his looming trial. 

Murdaugh, 54, was indicted in July on homicide expenses within the deaths of his spouse Maggie, 52, and their 22-year-old son, Paul, who had been killed on June 7, 2021, on the household’s house. He has adamantly denied killing them. 

But Attorney Dick Harpootlian instructed a press convention: ‘It’s trial by ambush. 

‘Give us the stuff. I haven’t got a shred of paper. I haven’t got an e mail. I haven’t got an exhibit. I haven’t got any evidence.’ 

The disbarred South Carolina lawyer’s trial for the double murders isn’t set to occur till subsequent year, however courtroom drama is already in full swing.

Murdaugh’s authorized group blasted prosecutors this week of leaking particulars to the media as an alternative of handing it over to the protection as required. They additionally declare they’ve by no means obtained any reviews on blood splatter or evidence discovered on telephones.

‘We’re prepared to work. Ready to hire investigators, prepared to hire consultants,’ he mentioned. ‘All I do know is what I learn in some weblog. I’ve by no means seen any blood spatter evidence. 

‘I’ve by no means seen any cellphone downloads. I’ve by no means seen any witness statements. Thirty-two days after we make the request, we nonetheless do not have something.’

If convicted of homicide, Murdaugh would face 30 years to life in jail with out parole. Prosecutors may additionally select to search the demise penalty beneath state regulation as a result of multiple particular person was killed.

The protection has filed a movement asking the decide to compel the state to flip over the evidence instantly and to unseal the main points of the grand jury indictment. 

In a response submitting, the state calls the movement a ‘blatant try to create drama the place previously there was none, saying the state has no need to preclude the protection from any discovery, and they may ship it over when the court docket inexperienced lights it.’

 ‘This manufactured drama is only a well-known half of protection counsel’s playbook,’ the state Attorney General’s Office responded to the protection in authorized papers.

The protection mentioned it’s ready for the evidence so it will probably hire consultants to assessment GPS information that authorities would possibly say linked Murdaugh to the taking pictures scene or bodily evidence like blood and DNA that investigators would possibly say present he fired one of the 2 weapons they mentioned had been used within the killings.

‘There’s the cellphone information,’ Harpootlian mentioned. ‘There’s the information from the black field in his truck. There’s forensics. We’re by no means seen an post-mortem or an evaluation of the time of demise.’ 

Authorities mentioned they need to shield post-mortem or crime scene images from turning into public and different evidence being revealed earlier than the trial.

Neither prosecutors nor state investigators have leaked information within the case, state Attorney General Alan Wilson mentioned in a press release.

The June 2021 deaths prompted authorities to look into all corners of Murdaugh’s life. At least a half-dozen investigations resulted in expenses that he stole $8.5 million from individuals who employed him and that he lied to police by saying he was shot by a stranger on a roadside. 

Officials say he really requested a buddy to kill him so his surviving son may acquire a $10 million life insurance coverage coverage simply days after the household agency decided he was stealing money. The buddy mentioned the gun went off as he tried to wrestle it from a suicidal Murdaugh’s grip.

Murdaugh is acquainted with authorized wrangling. His household has dominated the authorized scene in tiny, neighboring Hampton County for almost a century together with his father, grandfather and great-grandfather the world’s elected prosecutors for 87 years straight.

Defense attorneys need to take Murdaugh to trial as quickly as potential to clear his identify. Both sides seem to have agreed on January, with Harpootlian saying on the information convention outdoors his regulation office that he needs to stick to that timetable ‘come hell or excessive water’ and could have attorneys and the remainder of his agency doing no matter is important to assessment the evidence whether or not it’s 5 pages or 5 million pages.’

Authorities say Murdaugh shot Maggie, 52, with a rifle, and Paul, 22, with a shotgun at their Moselle property in June 2021. A motive for the slayings has but to be decided.

It isn’t identified how police linked Murdaugh to the deaths after greater than a year of investigation, however a regulation enforcement supply with shut information of the case instructed People police have a mess of damning evidence towards the ex lawyer.

The supply instructed the outlet again in July that investigators had proved that Murdaugh was on the home when the homicide came about due to blood spatter allegedly discovered on the then-lawyer’s garments after cops arrived on the scene.

The evidence, if reliable, contradicts claims from Murdaugh that he had been visiting his father at a close-by hospital on the time of the homicide, returning to discover their our bodies.

The supply additionally mentioned that Murdaugh’s cellular phone, watch, and car GPS additionally contradict these claims, People reported.

The outlet additionally added that investigators are adamant that Murdaugh lured his spouse to the scene, beneath the guise he wished her to accompany together with her to go to his ailing father, with whom she was shut.

The sources mentioned that the couple – who had been influential figures within the South Carolina authorized scene -had hit a tough patch of their marriage prior to the killings, and that Maggie on the time was staying on the household’s seashore home on Edisto Island, roughly an hour away from the household’s property.

The insider reportedly instructed People that Maggie at first declined requests from Murdaugh to meet on the household house, suggesting as an alternative they meet on the hospital. After some convincing, nonetheless, she consented to meet on the house, saying she would comply with Alex to the hospital in her automotive.

On her method to the house, Maggie allegedly messaged a buddy to inform her she felt uneasy concerning the association, and that she was nervous that Murdaugh was ‘up to one thing.’

The texts, People reported, noticed Maggie theorize that one thing about her husband’s conduct felt ‘fishy,’ with one of the messages flat-out declaring: ‘He’s up to one thing.’ The id of the recipient of these texts was not recognized on the July listening to.

However, probably the most damning piece of evidence in lawmen’s possession, allegedly, is cellular phone audio and video that the supply mentioned locations Murdaugh on the crime scene ‘moments’ earlier than the homicide, speaking with Maggie simply earlier than she was killed.

Murdaugh – who reportedly struggled with a debilitating opioid habit within the months build up to the homicide – was formally charged with their murders in July. The one-time authorized scion was indicted by a grand jury on two counts of homicide and two counts of possession of a weapon in the course of the fee of a violent crime.

It took police roughly 13 months to degree expenses towards Murdaugh- who’s already behind bars on separate expenses relating to fraud and embezzlement expenses relating to the money he stole from his regulation agency and a failed try to stage his personal homicide as half of a $10million life insurance coverage scam for his son in September.

Mere months after his spouse and son had been murdered, Murdaugh tried to stage his personal demise in order that Buster, his 26-year-old surviving son, may reap the sum, however was criminally charged when the suicide-for-hire plot fell aside after the try failed and his employed hit man was arrested.

The incident, which transpired on September 4, 2021, was Murdaugh being shot 3 times by 61-year-old Curtis Smith – one of his former purchasers – nonetheless, in accordance to police, he solely suffered a ‘superficial gunshot wound to the pinnacle.’

Smith has since been charged with assisted suicide, aggravated assault, and battery associated to the taking pictures. He is awaiting trial on these expenses.

Murdaugh, in the meantime, was charged with conspiracy to commit insurance coverage fraud, and jailed the next month. His trial can also be pending.

Murdaugh, whose father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had been additionally prime prosecutors South Carolina for almost a century, ‘believed ending his life was his solely possibility,’ his attorneys mentioned on the time, citing his spiraling opioid habit, which they mentioned evaporated the blue blooded jurist’s internet price over the course of 20 years.

Murdaugh instructed police he ‘discovered’ the our bodies of his youngest son and spouse outdoors a sequence canine kennels on the household’s 1,700 sq. toes searching property round 10pm on June 7, 2021.

In audio of the 911 name that he positioned at 10:07pm that night time, Murdaugh might be heard telling the dispatcher in a high-pitched screech: ‘I want the police and an ambulance instantly. My spouse and little one had been simply shot badly.’

Paul, 22, was shot twice with a shotgun – as soon as within the head and as soon as within the chest. Maggie had been shot a number of instances with an assault rifle. Their gunshot wounds had been believed to be per ‘execution-style’ killings, reviews mentioned.

According to a number of sources, Paul’s physique was discovered partially inside one of the kennels, whereas his mom’s was a number of toes away, main investigators to consider that she ran from her killer earlier than being gunned down.

At least two of her gunshot wounds had been believed to have been inflicted whereas she was on the bottom.

In the instant aftermath of the discoveries, Murdaugh’s household and attorneys vehemently defended the lawyer, who they asserted had a ‘ironclad alibi’ and that his marriage with Maggie was ‘full of love.’

However, Murdaugh’s ‘alibi’ was removed from hermetic, and has modified considerably since his preliminary claims that he was nowhere close to the property between 9 and 9:30pm – the time the coroner gave the approximate time of demise. 

Murdaugh instructed investigators that he was visiting his dying father and his mom about 11 miles away at their house in Varnville on the time of the murders.

Two weeks later, his brothers John Marvin and Randy Murdaugh instructed Good Morning America that he had in reality dropped his father at a hospital in Savannah earlier than going to go to his mom, who has dementia.

According to an account given by Murdaugh’s lawyer Jim Griffin to The State newspaper, Murdaugh claims to have left the property round 9pm to make the 20-minute drive to his mom’s home and returned to Moselle as initially claimed round or shortly after 10pm.

It is an account that locations him squarely on the scene throughout the timeframe of the killings.

It has been speculated that audio and video information gleaned from Paul’s cellphone discovered by his physique, however solely not too long ago unlocked by regulation enforcement, is what prompted Murdaugh’s dramatic change of tune.

Independent native information web site FITSNews has reported that not solely does this audio and video information present Murdaugh talking with Maggie, however that ‘excessive velocity affect spatter’ of blood discovered on his clothes that night time locations him on the scene of the murders when no less than one of the victims was killed.

At the identical time, Murdaugh was beneath excessive stress to cough up his monetary data as half of a wrongful demise swimsuit being introduced towards him and his older son, Richard ‘Buster’ Murdaugh, Jr, by the household of Mallory Beach – {the teenager} killed in an horrific boat crash in 2019.

Paul was drunk and on the wheel of the boat when it slammed into pilings on Archers Creek with six teenagers – all underage, all ingesting closely – aboard.

Beach, 19, was thrown from the vessel and her physique discovered by two fishermen one week later, 5 miles from the location. Her trigger of demise was blunt drive trauma and drowning. 

Legal paperwork seen by DailyMail.com present that attorneys for Beach’s household had repeatedly pressed Murdaugh for monetary disclosure and set a court docket deadline of June 9 – simply two days after Maggie and Paul’s murders – for him to hand over all related paperwork.

Back then, solely Murdaugh knew that he was neck-deep in money owed and, what prosecutors allege, was a multi-million-dollar insurance coverage fraud scheme and felony enterprise.

In the months following, investigators wanting into Maggie and Paul’s deaths uncovered a litany of crime and insurance coverage fraud which have seen them reopen two suspicious deaths linked to the household – former housekeeper Gloria Satterfield, 56, who fell after a ‘journey and fall’ at Moselle in 2018 and native teen, Stephen Smith, 19.

Satterfield’s sons mentioned they had been defrauded out of a $4.3million wrongful demise swimsuit introduced towards Murdaugh on his personal recommendation and with the promise that they might be taken care of.

Instead, Murdaugh syphoned off the funds for himself, allegedly with the assistance of Corey Fleming, a former USC roommate and fellow lawyer whom he advisable the Satterfield brothers use.

Fleming has additionally been charged for his half within the scheme.

SLED later introduced that it has obtained permission from Satterfield’s household to have her physique exhumed.

Hampton County Coroner, Angie Topper, requested investigators to have a look at Satterfield’s demise once more due to ‘inconsistencies.’

These included the truth that her office was by no means knowledgeable, that means no post-mortem was carried out, and that the style of demise given on the demise certificates – ‘pure’ – was not per a visit and fall.

Similarly, the style of Smith’s demise is as soon as once more the topic of investigation. The 19-year-old’s physique was discovered on a street in Hampton County in July 2015 with a head wound so devastating that investigators first thought he had been shot.

DailyMail.com revealed that the incident was in reality initially investigated as a murder however recategorized as a success and run within the face of sturdy opposition from the lead investigator who was one of the primary officers on the scene and discovered no evidence of any vehicular involvement.

In addition to this, 15 state grand jury indictments containing 79 expenses have come down towards Murdaugh with prosecutors claiming he defrauded a staggering $8.4million from victims.

The really dire state of his monetary affairs could go a way to explaining one of probably the most weird twists on this whole saga – Murdaugh’s failed ‘suicide-for-hire’ plot simply three months after Maggie and Paul’s deaths, and someday after he resigned from the household’s Hampton-based regulation agency.

The agency, previously often called Parker, Murdaugh, Parker, Elztroth & Detrick, or PMPED, stripped the Murdaugh identify from their masthead in January and has since rebranded because the Parker Law Group.

The agency later claimed that Murdaugh misappropriated company funds and no less than one of Murdaugh’s former colleagues is among the many many bringing fits towards him.

Then on September 4 final year, Murdaugh made his second frantic 911 name, this time to report that he had been shot whereas trying to change a tire by the aspect of the street not removed from Moselle.

From the beginning the story appeared odd, his accidents unconvincing and his description of the person so obscure and contradictory that SLED selected not to launch the artist’s impression that Murdaugh helped generate.

Within two weeks, the entire affair had unraveled with Murdaugh claiming that he had employed a buddy and distant relative Curtis ‘Eddie’ Smith, 61, to shoot him within the head in order that his surviving son, Buster, may obtain a $10million pay out kind his life insurance coverage.

He claimed that he had been within the throes of opioid habit and had been for greater than twenty years and checked himself into rehab in Florida.

He was charged with insurance coverage fraud and false reporting whereas Smith was charged on a number of counts together with conspiracy.

Smith has since been slapped with different expenses relating to his relationship to Murdaugh, monetary wrongdoing and drug trafficking.

Murdaugh is presently being held in Alvin S Glenn detention heart in Richland County on a $7million bond.